PERIOD PEACE

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Doctor Zhivago,  because that’s the day I got my first period. Other women hear “Lara’s Theme” and think “undying  romance.” I think “Help! I’m bleeding to death!”  I never did figure out the plot; I was too busy running to the bathroom every five minutes to make sure everything was okay. Mom had  given me an informative little talk about what to expect. But was I emotionally prepared for the jolt of suddenly, out of the blue,  discovering it was actually happening?
    No way. 
    I was twelve. Now I’m fifty-two. That’s forty years. My period has served its purpose -- eighteen years ago, I  successfully gave birth. This year my “baby”  started college.  At my age, it’s highly unlikely I’ll have another. It’s time for my monthly “friend” to take a hike.    
    Some women dread menopause because it symbolizes the end of their sexy, exciting youth.  Not me -- I’m looking forward to finally being able to toss the tampons.  I’m also down with saying goodbye to excruciating menstrual cramps. I’m not saying my period hasn’t brought me moments of joy. I’ll never forget the thrill of finally getting that three-week-late period during my third year of law school.   I’d just begun to get my life on track. I wasn’t ready to be a mother. When I saw that blood, my heart soared. And there was the amazing moment, years later, when, after months of trying,  the little stick turned pink. I was going to be a mom!  
    Neither of these unforgettable menstrual moments quite compares with the time my friend Deb returned home to find her living room strewn with unused tampons. Her sons happily announced they’d discovered her cool supply of “pretend hand grenades“ and had spent the morning crouched behind the sofa, ripping them open, yanking them from their cardboard holders, then hurling them over the sofa, shouting “KABOOM!”
    My niece recently got her first period.  She has decades of bleeding and breeding ahead of her. As Mom told me solemnly when I was twelve, handing me a gigantic box of sanitary napkins and showing me the garter belt that would  hold them in place (this was the pre-tampon era), “It’s all part of the miracle of being a woman.“
    “You’ve got to be kidding,” I responded.  Even then, I recognized that monthly periods weren’t so much a miracle as a ludicrous, inefficient Rube Goldberg contraption for keeping the human race going. I’ll admit that there’s an appeal to  the way it creates cycles that give structure to a woman’s life.  Once those cycles vanish, my days will have a certain sameness.  Perhaps I’ll even mourn the loss of those familiar patterns.
    But will I actually miss bleeding every month? I don’t think so. 
    When menopause does come, I doubt I’ll feel like my youth is ending. I think I’ll feel as if  I’m reclaiming the person I was when I was twelve. I sat down to watch that movie and my whole life changed. I’m ready for it to change again.